I stumbled across a show on the Do-It-Yourself Network, “Texas Flip or Move,” and I’m hooked. The premise is that land prices around Fort Worth have gone through the roof, and developers are rejuvenating old neighborhoods with new, pricey mansions.

            Standing in their way are old homes that need to either come down or get moved. Enter the Fort Worth flippers who drive in, bid on a house, move it and then renovate the house. After the rebuild, the house goes up for auction.

            The characters have Texas stamped all over them. There’s the no-nonsense Snow sisters whose whole family is in the house moving and renovating business.

There’s the crafty “Lone Wolf,” also known as Randy, whose goatee, mustache and ability to come in and undercut the others is legendary.

            Cody, the “Young Gun” is no longer on the show, but his appearances the first couple of seasons are worth watching. He has all the bravado one would expect in a brash entrepreneur, and he’s a whirlwind of confidence and mishaps.

            Seeing these flippers take a dilapidated house, rip everything out and turn the disaster into a cozy and livable space is fascinating. I watch each episode with envy because I used to dream of taking an old house and turning it into a true treasure.

            But my skills are somewhat lacking.

            Let’s be honest.

            My skills are woefully lacking.

            The first house I owned needed some work. I imagined wallpaper in the bedroom, mostly because my mom owned a wallpaper store. I’d never hung wallpaper before, but as a 20-something, I figured I could handle the task just fine. Besides, free wallpaper was a lot more attractive than buying two gallons of paint.

            I read the directions, wet the wallpaper and hung it on the wall. I didn’t wait the prescribed amount of time, figuring 10 minutes was a lot better than waiting a half hour. By dinnertime, the entire room was wallpapered, and I felt quite proud of myself.

            Until 2 a.m.

            I woke up to a noise in the room, and I couldn’t figure out what was happening. It sounded like a soft ripping and then a plop. I turned on the lamp, and saw half the wallpaper was in puddles on the floor.

            I watched with horror as piece after piece neatly rolled down the wall and landed in a pile on the floor. I couldn’t watch the massacre, so I got out of bed and ripped the rest of the paper off the wall in an angry snit.

            Three hours of scrubbing wallpaper paste off the wall, some spackling and two gallons of paint later, the room looked great.

            I’m not that fabulous with paint either.

            When I was a teenager, I had the brilliant idea of painting the walls in my room white and the trim a bright blue. Red, white and blue were the fashion choices of the day, and I thought mine and my sister’s room would look great in those patriotic colors.

            I remember holding a pint of bright blue enamel paint in my left hand while painting the trim with my right hand. I was standing on a folding chair and when I leaned a little too far to the right, we all came tumbling down.

            We never could get that blue paint out of the carpet, and we had to use primer to cover up the blue that spilled all the way down the freshly painted white wall.

            I think my sister’s still mad at me over that one.

            There were a few projects that turned out better than I thought. A friend told me to wet the sandpaper and sand my kitchen cabinets that desperately needed refurbishing. Some elbow grease and a can of high-gloss varnish later, I had kitchen cabinets that looked brand new.

            So as I watch these Texas flippers turn trash into treasure, I’m amazed at their ingenuity. I did notice, however, that none of them ever hangs wallpaper.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.